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Onion Market Update for December 14, 2022
By John Harris
As things go this time of year, markets are generally pretty darn steady. I am one week removed from another fantastic meeting at the National Onion Association in Scottsdale, Arizona this year. I had a chance to talk to a lot of different producers from around the country. There was a mixed bag of optimism and caution going into 2023 as far as market conditions go.
Most people seem to be in the boat that the yellow market is likely going to remain steady. Optimism is high on the white market remaining in good shape, but what comes in from Mexico early in the year is being watched pretty closely. I talked to a lot of people about my thoughts that the red market would make a move and got back a mixed bag of opinions from people that agreed with my argument for it rising, and I got some feedback from growers that were maybe not as optimistic as I am on that front. If any of us were really great market predictors, we’d all have a longer line at our door of people that wanted to talk to us!
Generally speaking, markets tend to move after the 1st of the year because of a shortage of supply, which is caused when nearly all the shippers in the country are on limited packing schedules for 2 weeks in a row. This year, due to lack of supply, most shippers have been a little limited on production time anyway. Add the fact that Christmas and New Years fall over the weekend this year, and I don’t think that we will see any price changes coming into the beginning of 2023.
Mexico already has onions crossing and that will likely only increase the further we get into early 2023. It is most likely to have an impact on the white market more than anything else early, and that impact will likely be restricted to the Southeast portion of the U.S. With the shortage of yellows that exists, I’m not real sure that Mexican production is going to have a great impact on the yellow market at any time. Again, maybe regionally in the Southeast?
Lastly and generally speaking, a storage red crop is almost always more appealing than a fresh crop red. Because of this, it has seemed to me over the years, we have seen less and less new crop reds available until California gets going in mid-April.
To summarize, markets should remain quite steady for at least the next 3 weeks. Trucks, as always, starting next week are going to get more expensive, creating higher delivered prices, but those freight prices should be back to current levels by the 2nd week of January. I hope my updates are helpful and insightful, and as always, I love any feedback I can get if you have time.
I’d like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year. I’m looking forward to doing a lot more good onion business in 2023 with all of you.
Editors Note: John Harris is the president and founder of Paradigm Fresh and Colorado Cold Connect in Fort Morgan, Colorado. He can be reached at John@paradigmfresh.com.
